December 2020 Weather Observations for the PNW

[Brian_in_Leavenworth]

8 minutes ago, iFred said:

Its not that it is a ridgey pattern, its that a meh pattern for the people who reside in the area that this subforum covers. My friends in Philly are excited and sure there is a chance this works out for us, to play it out as "oh we're gonna get cold" is a bit disingenuous.

Who knows maybe I'm wrong and the ice age cometh.

People on the East Coast think that EVERY SSW that has ever occured or will ever occur will go to them.

[Deweydog]

What’s remarkable is that three years ago none of us gave two sh*ts about SSW’s.

[Phil]

7 minutes ago, iFred said:

Its not that it is a ridgey pattern, its that a meh pattern for the people who reside in the area that this subforum covers. My friends in Philly are excited and sure there is a chance this works out for us, to play it out as "oh we're gonna get cold" is a bit disingenuous.

Who knows maybe I'm wrong and the ice age cometh.

Well it’s not the -NAO by itself that’ll bring the cold out there next month. It’s the AAM removal following the jet extension in conjunction w/ SSW, that’ll help build the GOA ridge.

That -NAO and Scandi High/Okhotsk Sea low is an important conduit to getting there, however. 

[Brian_in_Leavenworth]

EPS

Looks similar to the 12Z

[snow_wizard]

The EPS looks very much like the 12z.  The mean shows below normal heights over the NW in the 10 to 15 day period while the control shows a significant GOA ridge.

[Meatyorologist]

1 minute ago, Brian_in_Leavenworth said:

People on the East Coast think that EVERY SSW that has ever occur or will ever occur will go to them.

To be fair, they score on the vast majority of them. After all, there is this thing called the "Canadian Rockies" and they're mostly made of rock, at material that unbeknownst to many can't actually be moved by air.

Sarcasm aside, it's not a mutually exclusive thing. Many times when we score, they are immediately next. SSW's are just plainly a good thing for the lower latitudes in general, so no wonder they're excited.

[snow_wizard]

25 minutes ago, luminen said:

Well we probably will too (not saying we won't).

The east will definitely get in on the action no matter what since it is so easy to get cold air that way. It's just how it is on this continent.

Not always.

[Phil]

7 minutes ago, Brian_in_Leavenworth said:

People on the East Coast think that EVERY SSW that has ever occur or will ever occur will go to them.

Well that didn’t work out either of the last two times (2018 and 2019). Instead the West took it all.

If anything I suspect the pattern might become more hostile for the East once the SSW completes.

[snow_wizard]

1 minute ago, Meatyorologist said:

To be fair, they score on the vast majority of them. After all, there is this thing called the "Canadian Rockies" and they're mostly made of rock, at material that unbeknownst to many can't actually be moved by air.

Sarcasm aside, it's not a mutually exclusive thing. Many times when we score, they are immediately next. SSW's are just plainly a good thing for the lower latitudes in general, so no wonder they're excited.

The SSW the ECMWF is showing is very extreme.  It will have some big impacts in all liklihood.

[Brian_in_Leavenworth]

2 minutes ago, Meatyorologist said:

To be fair, they score on the vast majority of them. After all, there is this thing called the "Canadian Rockies" and they're mostly made of rock, at material that unbeknownst to many can't actually be moved by air.

Sarcasm aside, it's not a mutually exclusive thing. Many times when we score, they are immediately next. SSW's are just plainly a good thing for the lower latitudes in general, so no wonder they're excited.

You are right they do score way more often then we do, so I guess it is understandable.

[BLI snowman]

6 minutes ago, iFred said:

Its not that it is a ridgey pattern, its that a meh pattern for the people who reside in the area that this subforum covers. My friends in Philly are excited and sure there is a chance this works out for us, to play it out as "oh we're gonna get cold" is a bit disingenuous.

Who knows maybe I'm wrong and the ice age cometh.

Patterns that favor a lot of arctic air moving about the country tend to favor.... the whole country.

This forum has created a weird false dichotomy where it's always us vs. some other region, but the patterns that get us cold still tend to eventually share the love. And vice versa. When the PV goes down, it stays down. And we all get credited with a sack.

 

[Brian_in_Leavenworth]

1 minute ago, snow_wizard said:

The SSW the ECMWF is showing is very extreme.  It will have some big impacts in all liklihood.

Thinking it could be a coast to coast event?

[Meatyorologist]

1 minute ago, BLI snowman said:

Patterns that favor a lot of arctic air moving about the country tend to favor.... the whole country.

This forum has created a weird false dichotomy where it's always us vs. some other region, but the patterns that get us cold still tend to eventually share the love. And vice versa. When the PV goes down, it stays down. And we all get credited with a sack.

 

Exactly.

[snow_wizard]

The past 2 EPS control runs both show things about to go nuts late in the run.  Looks like a GOA ridge and the NAO block are trying to bridge.

[Deweydog]

4 minutes ago, Phil said:

Didn’t work out either of the last 2 times. If anything the pattern might become more hostile for the East once the SSW completes.

Seems to me things got a little chilly in January 2019 out your way.

[Omegaraptor]

3 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

Patterns that favor a lot of arctic air moving about the country tend to favor.... the whole country.

This forum has created a weird false dichotomy where it's always us vs. some other region, but the patterns that get us cold still tend to eventually share the love. And vice versa. When the PV goes down, it stays down. And we all get credited with a sack.

 

Remember what happened in the Midwest in late January 2019?

[Jesse]

4 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

Patterns that favor a lot of arctic air moving about the country tend to favor.... the whole country.

This forum has created a weird false dichotomy where it's always us vs. some other region, but the patterns that get us cold still tend to eventually share the love. And vice versa. When the PV goes down, it stays down. And we all get credited with a sack.

 

Wish I could like this twice.

[snow_wizard]

3 minutes ago, Brian_in_Leavenworth said:

Thinking it could be a coast to coast event?

Possible.  The general thinking with the professionals is there will be a strong N to S anomaly gradient when the cold really gets going.  Could spread out across much of the north.

[Phil]

12 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

Patterns that favor a lot of arctic air moving about the country tend to favor.... the whole country.

This forum has created a weird false dichotomy where it's always us vs. some other region, but the patterns that get us cold still tend to eventually share the love. And vice versa. When the PV goes down, it stays down. And we all get credited with a sack.

 

This.

The really blocky winters tend to nail everyone at some point. Even the western-centric winter of 1949/50 produced the coldest upper level airmass ever recorded in March out here. 

[snow_wizard]

Here's the EPS control in early January.  The 12z was almost identical.

 

[Brian_in_Leavenworth]

Control run goes pretty negative.  This also looks like the 12Z.

[Phil]

6 minutes ago, Deweydog said:

Seems to me things got a little chilly in January 2019 out your way.

Yeah, while the SSW was ongoing we got cold. But that pattern predated the event..often happens like that.

Once the vortex was gone, the cold pool drained into W-Canada and stayed there for a month.

[BLI snowman]

9 minutes ago, Omegaraptor said:

Remember what happened in the Midwest in late January 2019?

2013-14 was also the last time we had significant arctic air here.... and not surprisingly it was also a winter with a lot of arctic air moving around the country. 3rd coldest winter on record for Chicago back to 1872. The PV split very early on and never looked back.

 

[Phil]

7 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

2013-14 was also the last time we had significant arctic air here.... and not surprisingly it was also a winter with a lot of arctic air moving around the country. 3rd coldest winter on record for Chicago back to 1872. The PV split very early on and never looked back.

 

I’d love to experience a winter like 1978/79 or 1898/99. Persistent, relentless cross polar flow somewhere, regardless of how the wave pool got shaken up.

2013/14 was a poor man’s version of that, I guess? One heck of a winter out here for sure. Second best I’ve experienced, next to the craziness in 2009/10.

[Phil]

4 minutes ago, iFred said:

 

Yeah, totally get the idea that it isn't always an either or but more often than not it ends up as such. Please whip out the numbers to prove otherwise but until then, winter remains canceled for west of the Cascades.

1898/99, 1916/17, 1917/18, 1942/43, 1962/63, 1968/69, 1970/71, 1978/79, 1981/82, 1985/86, 1995/96, 2008/09, 2010/11, 2013/14, 2018/19.

All had big time events in the West and the East. As far as I know. I’m sure I’m missing many more.

 

[BLI snowman]

4 minutes ago, Phil said:

I’d love to experience a winter like 1978/79 or 1898/99. Persistent, relentless cross polar flow somewhere, regardless of how the wave pool got shaken up.

2013/14 was a poor man’s version of that, I guess? One heck of a winter out here for sure. Second best I’ve experienced, next to the craziness in 2009/10.

I guess you were a little young in 1995-96. That was another one (Nina!) where we very consistently saw arctic airmasses flowing about the land, even with some monster Pacific jet action at times.

[Deweydog]

3 minutes ago, iFred said:

 

Yeah, totally get the idea that it isn't always an either or but more often than not it ends up as such. Please whip out the numbers to prove otherwise but until then, winter remains canceled for west of the Cascades.

Are you seriously looking for a guarantee?

What’s likely is there will be a fairly significant pattern change at some point next month.  There’s overlapping indicators of it, including the simple fact that something’s gotta give.  It may or may not have a significant meridional component.  

[Phil]

4 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

I guess you were a little young in 1995-96. That was another one (Nina!) where we very consistently saw arctic airmasses flowing about the land, even with some monster Pacific jet action at times.

Yeah I don’t really remember it. Can vaguely recall my dad throwing me into a snow pile, where I got stuck for five frigid minutes.

 

[Meatyorologist]

Just now, iFred said:

Canceled.

So far my place is 1-for-1 when you've cancelled winter.

[Jesse]

PDX down to 31 before midnight...nice recovery.

[snow_wizard]

4 minutes ago, BLI snowman said:

I guess you were a little young in 1995-96. That was another one (Nina!) where we very consistently saw arctic airmasses flowing about the land, even with some monster Pacific jet action at times.

That winter unquestionably featured the best last half January since either 1969 or 1972.

[BLI snowman]

3 minutes ago, Deweydog said:

Are you seriously looking for a guarantee?

What’s likely is there will be a fairly significant pattern change at some point next month.  There’s overlapping indicators of it, including the simple fact that something’s gotta give.  It may or may not have a significant meridional component.  

We're also heading into the back half of a Nina. About as good of a guarantee for general troughing out here as there can be.

Of course 2018-19 kind of turned the ENSO flip thing on its head, so maybe it's a new ballgame now!

[snow_wizard]

Down to 29 here now.  Three consecutive lows of 30 or below.  Getting better.

[Deweydog]

1 minute ago, BLI snowman said:

We're also heading into the back half of a Nina. About as good of a guarantee for general troughing out here as there can be.

Of course 2018-19 kind of turned the ENSO flip thing on its head, so maybe it's a new ballgame now!

The ultimate payback!

[Deweydog]

Pandemic and warm December fatigue is a nasty cocktail.

[BLI snowman]

5 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

That winter unquestionably featured the best last half January since either 1969 or 1972.

Indeed. We had a quiet stretch around New Years that was suddenly broken by a vicious near severe nocturnal squall line on the 15th. Signaled a total pattern shift that lasted up through the flood.

[Phil]

Not arctic yet, but consistently cool/stormy. More EPS members now starting to build a real GOA ridge at the end of week 2..doesn’t show up clearly in mean but it’s something I noticed tonight.

Imagine these anomalies inverted..and you’ll see how much better this is to the reverse.

[Timmy Supercell]

Dec 29th looks like my first 5+ inch event on euro.

There were at least 3 years I've seen snows land on that exact day at my place.

[SouthHillFrosty]

Either the west gets the cold or the east. There is no in between.

[Timmy Supercell]

24 minutes ago, snow_wizard said:

That winter unquestionably featured the best last half January since either 1969 or 1972.

Now that you mention it, the last somewhat snowy late January I had was in 2012. It likes to trend drier in that time frame most years.